On Saturday, Tottenham drew at home 2-2 against Stoke City, a team we didn’t get a single point off last season, and if you didn’t know any better, judging by the social media reaction, you would have thought the world was about to end.
Twitter went into complete and utter meltdown, and many people went on to point the proverbial finger to blame many aspects of the whole club of Tottenham. Now, I’m not suggesting for a second that these fans are wrong, because you can’t call an opinion wrong. Seeing these tweets, and seeing the outrage of fans made me think about what is wrong with Tottenham? Is it the players? Maybe. Is it the manager? What about the board?
The worst thing about this weekend wasn’t actually the result; it was the fact that Tottenham Hotspur fans were arguing with each other about what is wrong with our club. Seeing fans arguing about what they want wrong with the club, and seeing the language that they were using against each other was enough to make me abstain from social media for a good 4 hours. Even then, the conflict remained. It’s understandable that people were upset, but the first rule of being a fan is that you never argue with your own fans.
Now that I got that out of my system, time to evaluate the “problem”. Firstly, lets talk about the players. We know that a large portion of our squad isn’t good enough to make our expectations, but saying that, the players that match our expectations play for the teams that are directly above us every season. We expect these players to deliver us something that in reality we will not attain unless someone messes up and a gap opens.
We are quick to throw the book at certain players, in particular Erik Lamela, and they just aren’t good enough. It isn’t his fault that we paid £30M for him, but a lot of people seem to forget that fact. The kid clearly isn’t physically cut out for the Premier League, and whilst we may hold onto the hope that maybe he can come good. But it’s not going to happen. We realized that half way through last season, but people are claiming that only now, 2 games into the new season, that his time is up. Only now? Kyle Walker is another one who is basically a younger version of Glen Johnson (if he isn’t now, then eventually he will be), Nacer Chadli isn’t consistent, Ryan Mason is on and off and I personally don’t rate Nabil Bentaleb (shoot me now). The only player in our team who is legitimately a top, top class player is Hugo Lloris, and you know that if he puts in another great season, he will probably be off. It’s the nature of Tottenham that our star players are sold on and lesser players are brought in to fill a gap that is crying out for a different type of player. That’s just how the board at Tottenham work.
Speaking of the board, it’s a tricky place at the heart of our club. Let’s first of all take a look at the positives. We are one of the only clubs in the country that doesn’t have any outstanding debt, at least until the stadium is built. They have created a stable situation (financially) at Tottenham, and have increased our name around the world. On the negative side, they sell our best players over and over again, and then reinvest the money into above average players, then wonder why we aren’t very good. On the football field, the board has no idea what’s going on. Managers axed at a whim, players coming and going. It’s not how to run a club. I don’t personally mind Daniel Levy, because if anyone is going to save the club money, and buy someone on the cheap, he’s the man. He’s a businessman; he’s made a living off of saving money for companies. Tottenham are a company, and Levy is not a football man. If you want a football man who wants to splash millions on players, I point you in the comedic direction of Queens Park Rangers. Now what do you prefer?
Mauricio Pochettino, no matter how good or bad he is, will suffer the same fate as every other manager we have had for many years. He will be sacked, unless of course he delivers the impossible and wins the league. We know the end of this story, Ladies and Gentleman, Tottenham Hotspur is the impossible job.
But what we have to remember is that, football is just a sport. We need to remember, that football is just a ride, and when you choose to go on the ride, you think it’s real, because that’s how powerful our minds are. That’s what it feels like to support Spurs. It’s just a ride. Not always a good one, but hey, it’s only a ride.
